City of San Juan Bautista · Statewide General Election
San Juan Bautista City Council
This is one contest. Enter your address to see every race on your November ballot, and keep track of your picks.
On the ballot
- Leslie Q. Jordan — Incumbent
- Elise Brentnall
- Eduardo "Eddie" Guaracha
- Jackie Morris-Lopez — Incumbent
This person would hold one of three at-large seats up this cycle on San Juan Bautista's 5-member City Council: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, for a 4-year term, under a council-manager government with an appointed City Manager. San Juan Bautista (2020 Census population 2,089; incorporated 1869), a small General Law city in San Benito County, doesn't directly elect a Mayor -- each December the Council chooses one of its own members to serve as Mayor and one as Mayor Pro Tempore, per the city's Municipal Code.
Four candidates filed for San Juan Bautista's three open City Council seats this cycle: incumbent Mayor Leslie Q. Jordan, incumbent Council Member Jackie Morris-Lopez, and non-incumbents Elise Brentnall and Eduardo "Eddie" Guaracha. With four candidates for three seats, this is a genuinely contested race that goes to the ballot -- not a case where the city could appoint winners and skip the election.
This person would hold one of San Juan Bautista's five City Council seats for a 4-year term: city ordinances, the budget, and land use, under a council-manager government where an appointed City Manager runs day-to-day operations. San Juan Bautista (incorporated 1869, 2020 Census population 2,089) is a small General Law city -- one of California's smallest -- best known regionally as the seat of Mission San Juan Bautista. The Council elects its own Mayor and Vice -- Mayor Pro Tempore -- from among its five members each December, per the city's Municipal Code, rather than voters directly electing a Mayor, so there's no separate 'Mayor of San Juan Bautista' contest on this ballot.
Three of the Council's five seats are up this cycle: Mayor Leslie Q. Jordan's, Council Member Jackie Morris-Lopez's, and Mayor Pro Tempore EJ Sabathia's -- all three have terms expiring December 2026. Sabathia is not among the four 2026 candidates, confirming Sabathia isn't seeking reelection and leaving a genuinely open seat alongside the two incumbents' races. The other two Council Members, Scott Freels and Jose Aranda, both have terms expiring December 2028 and aren't up this cycle at all.
Leslie Q. Jordan
Leslie Q. Jordan is the incumbent, currently serving as Mayor -- chosen for that title by fellow Councilmembers under the city's rotating selection rule, not elected to it directly. She is confirmed as sitting Mayor by both the City's own Council roster page and independently by Wikipedia's page for the city. She did not file a candidate statement for this cycle. No further independent record of her occupation, background, or platform was found in this pass: the City's Council page lists members by name and title only, with no linked biography, and no BenitoLink, Ballotpedia, or general web search turned up coverage of her 2026 candidacy or Council record.
Strengths
Sitting incumbent and current Mayor, confirmed by two independent sources.
Trade-offs
No independent record of her occupation, platform, or voting record was found in this pass -- her incumbency and title are confirmed, but nothing else about her is.
Keep in mind
She's the only one of the four who didn't file a candidate statement. The absence of coverage reflects San Juan Bautista's small size and thin local-news environment, not anything unusual about her -- her opponents have an equally bare public record.
Jackie Morris-Lopez
Jackie Morris-Lopez is the incumbent, currently a sitting Council Member -- confirmed by the City's own Council roster page, which lists her official city email and a term expiring December 2026. She filed a candidate statement for this cycle. No further independent record of her occupation, background, or platform was found in this pass: no BenitoLink, Ballotpedia, or general web search turned up coverage of her time on the Council or her 2026 candidacy.
Strengths
Sitting incumbent Council Member, confirmed by the City's own roster; filed a candidate statement.
Trade-offs
No independent record of her occupation, platform, or voting record was found in this pass -- her incumbency is confirmed, but nothing else about her is.
Keep in mind
The same thin local-news environment applies here as with the rest of this field -- a gap in what's currently verifiable, not a red flag specific to her.
Elise Brentnall
Elise Brentnall is a non-incumbent candidate for San Juan Bautista City Council; her nomination papers were qualified Aug. 6, 2026, the first of the four candidates to qualify. She filed a candidate statement for this cycle. No occupation, platform, or civic background for her was found on the City's own website, in local news, or in a general web search this pass.
Strengths
None independently confirmed for this candidacy beyond being an early qualifier who filed a candidate statement.
Trade-offs
No occupation, platform, or news coverage was found for her 2026 run, and no campaign-finance filing was found either.
Keep in mind
A bare public record here reflects the same gap affecting all four candidates in this small-town race, not something specific to her.
Eduardo "Eddie" Guaracha
Eduardo "Eddie" Guaracha is a non-incumbent candidate for San Juan Bautista City Council, the last of the four to qualify (Aug. 11, 2026). He filed a candidate statement for this cycle. No occupation, platform, or civic background for him was found on the City's own website, in local news, or in a general web search this pass.
Strengths
None independently confirmed for this candidacy beyond filing a candidate statement.
Trade-offs
No occupation, platform, or news coverage was found for his 2026 run, and no campaign-finance filing was found either.
Keep in mind
A late qualification date is a legal, low-key way to run for a small-town council seat -- not itself a red flag, just a gap in what's currently verifiable.
Candidate background for this contest is genuinely thin across all four names, not lopsided: beyond Jordan's and Morris-Lopez's confirmed incumbency, none of the four has an independently verifiable occupation, platform, or civic record in this pass. San Juan Bautista is a town of about 2,100 people with no dedicated local newspaper of its own; BenitoLink, San Benito County's own dominant local outlet -- which does cover this cycle's Hollister City Council and County Supervisor races -- was checked directly by candidate name and by browsing its San Juan Bautista community page and election-coverage hub, and carries no coverage of this race at all. Ballotpedia's page for this jurisdiction returned no content. The Hollister Free Lance blocked every fetch attempt this pass (HTTP 403) -- a documented access gap, not a confirmed absence of coverage.
Source review: Strong (87/100) · 6 cited sources
Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context.
- sanbenitocounty-ca-cre.gov (opens in a new tab)San Benito County Department of Elections -- "Final Qualified Candidate List," Nov. 3, 2026 General Election: names "Member City Council [San Juan Bautista]" (contest #1323) On Ballot: Yes, Vote For: 3, with 4 qualified candidates (names abbreviated out of this dataset's on-file transcription; confirmed separately by the City's own election page).
- san-juan-bautista.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of San Juan Bautista -- City Clerk "Elections and Voter Information" page: "City Councilmember – Three (3) Seats," each "a full four-year term," at-large and nonpartisan, with a dated qualification table naming Elise Brentnall (qualified 8/06/2026), Eduardo "Eddie" Guaracha (qualified 8/11/2026), Leslie Q. Jordan (qualified 8/07/2026), and Jackie Morris-Lopez (qualified 8/07/2026), and whether each filed a candidate statement.
- san-juan-bautista.ca.us (opens in a new tab)City of San Juan Bautista -- City Council (current membership roster): names the sitting five-member Council -- Mayor Leslie Q. Jordan, Mayor Pro Tem EJ Sabathia, and Council Members Scott Freels, Jose Aranda, and Jackie Morris-Lopez -- with each member's term-expiration date, and quotes the Municipal Code (Chapter 2-1, City Council) directly on the Council choosing its own Mayor and Mayor Pro Tempore each December.
- en.wikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia -- San Juan Bautista, California: 2020 Census population (2,089), 1869 incorporation date, and independent corroboration that Leslie Q. Jordan is the sitting Mayor.
- benitolink.com (opens in a new tab)A negative-result local-press search: direct BenitoLink site-search queries for each candidate's name, and browsing BenitoLink's own San Juan Bautista community page and 2026 election-coverage hub directly, all returned no article on this race; Ballotpedia's jurisdiction page returned no content; the Hollister Free Lance blocked every fetch attempt (HTTP 403).
- cal-access.sos.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)A negative-result campaign-finance check: California's Cal-Access filer search returned no retrievable content for a direct query against each of the four candidates' names this session; San Benito County's own campaign-disclosure subdomain (sbcvote.us) is a dead domain redirecting to an unrelated business, and the county's main elections site 403s every fetch attempt.
Last updated September 2, 2026.